Tag: repair

dyson v11 trigger repair & tips

alan Leave a comment

back in January this year i ordered a refurbished dyson v11 off newegg (the full model name is V11 Animal+ Cordless Vacuum) for about $300 (new ones were close to $600) and it was working great up until end of November last month. the problem was that the trigger had stopped working – it wasn’t springing back into its normal position after depressing and wouldn’t turn on the vacuum anymore.

turns out this broken trigger on the v11 is a well known issue and it’s caused by a weak plastic arm / lever on the trigger assembly. it’s frustrating because why the hell would you made such a high use component that get subjected to repeated force out of thin plastic instead of metal? or at least make the plastic arm thicker so it doesn’t just crack in less than a year of use.

thankfully because this is such a common issue there were repair tutorials online and spare parts available through ebay. i was able to finally finish the repair yesterday and in this post i’ll share what resources i used and some tips (both for others and for myself in the future if i need to do this again…)

here’s the youtube video that documents the disassembly process and required tools. just a heads up, the trigger mechanism is embedded pretty deep and requires basically an entire disassembly of the vacuum. the video is less than five minutes long but i think it took me closer to 45min to get it all apart.

tips

you WILL need all the tools mentioned in the video. definitely the long torque screw and pliers. you won’t be able to remove the trigger assembly without a pair of pliers (i tried). it will also be helpful to have some kind of gripper (things that look like tweezers but for electronics, most electronic repair tool kits will come with this) to grip on to wires later during re-assembly

buy a new complete trigger assembly with metal switch (or at the very least a metal trigger piece to replace the plastic trigger with). yes it’s pretty funny that there’s apparently an entire market providing more durable switches for the v11 than dyson themselves. in my first go at this, i did what the video suggested and tried gluing the broken trigger with superglue. i do not recommend doing this because the trigger ended up breaking immediately again and i had to repeat the entire process. maybe i didn’t let it cure long enough. maybe my super glue wasn’t super enough. whatever, just save yourself the trouble and replace the entire assembly. below is an image of one i found on ebay (note that it says v10 – it’s also compatible with v11).

during reassembly, there will be a point where you need to straighten / bend the metal ends of the electric connectors in order to pass it through various parts of the vacuum. you’ll know what i’m talking about if you end up going through the full disassembly. try not to bend/re-bend them too many times because you can easily break off the metal ends (see below)

in my first pass at this after i had glued the trigger back together, i actually broke off the metal piece by accident when trying to bend it back and then spent over an hour trying to re-solder it back on. i also have no idea how to properly solder and ended up burning a hole in my table cloth. anyway when you’re re-connecting those metal connectors back, use your pliers to adjust them to be close to 90 degrees (as they were before you had to remove them) but it honestly doesn’t have to be perfect. just use the screws to tighten them against the motherboard.

iPhone SE (1st Gen 2016) Battery Replacement

alan Leave a comment

I bought my current refurbished iPhone SE back in August 2018. It’s my favorite phone by far and I have no plans on getting a new phone. There’s a second gen SE that was released in 2022 that’s slightly bigger with a 4.7inch screen that I may consider getting in the future, but I really prefer a smaller phone and the original SE is the last iPhone from Apple to have a 4 inch screen. Last year (2022) the battery life started giving me trouble because it was losing 8-10% every hour just by having Bluetooth on.

Since it’s a refurbished phone that was over 4 years old at that point I figured it would be nice to try to replace the battery myself. If I screw up terribly I won’t feel too bad about getting a new phone and if it works out I’ll be able to squeeze maybe a few more years out of this thing.

My ebay purchase back in 2018

Anyway I ended up doing it and I’m fine. Nothing exploded. My wife has the same model so I ended up replacing her battery as well and so far the phone works just like new. Here are the resources I used and tools I purchased to do this – I’ll also include some notes at the end based on my experience.

Videos

Longish video that I followed step by step

Here’s a shorter video that I used as an additional reference.

Purchases

I bought this all in one battery and repair tool kit from Amazon that worked out pretty well. I didn’t have the special Apple screw drivers and buying the kit and battery separately was more expensive so I recommend this if you’re doing it for the first time and don’t want to worry about whether you have everything you need.

If you just want to know what the essential parts are:

  • PAISUE iPhone Replacement Battery for iPhone A1662. A1662 is the official US model for the SE but it also goes by A1723 and A1724 in other countries (you should double check this).
  • Battery adhesive. This usually comes with the new battery – you’ll need it to replace the existing adhesive that’s holding the battery to the phone.
  • Suction cup for removing the screen frame. It’s pretty tricky to lift the screen off initially without some sort of suction tool…
  • Pentalobe screw driver for those special Apple screws.
  • A small prying tool. The kit comes with this plastic triangle pick that I used to pry open the screen. Not super necessary since you can make use of plastics you already have like credit cards.

Some images from my repair

Tips

  • The screen consist of two parts – make sure you lift up the entire frame of the screen and not just the screen itself. If you’re doing it right you’ll see the face of the battery underneath.
  • The videos all make the adhesive removal look easier that it is. Both times I broke the adhesive either immediately or midway. Go VERY slow with the adhesive because it’s so much harder to remove the battery once it breaks. I highly recommend using some sort of warming mat to soften the glue (I used a low-heat coffee warmer the second time around and it went much smoother). The first time I did this and the adhesive broke, I ended up prying the battery (not ideal, but I felt I could do it safely since most of the adhesive had been removed). I would really just go as slow as you can because seriously if it breaks you’re like doubling your repair time.
  • Make sure you lay out the various parts and screws in order and keep track of how they’re going back in. There’s at least one place holding the screen in place that has 4 tiny screws of different sizes – the first time I did it I lost track and wasted some time trial-and-erroring my way with the tiny screws.

Good luck and be safe.